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George Santayana
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as anAmerican, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport.1 He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. At the age of forty-eight, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently, never to return to the United States. His last wish was to be buried in the Spanish pantheon in Rome. Santayana is known for famous sayings, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", or "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Santayana, like many philosophers from the late nineteenth century, was a naturalist (that is, he denied the existence of supernatural beings, like gods and ghosts), but he found profound meaning in literary writings and in religious ideas and texts (which he regarded as fundamentally akin to literature). Santayana was a broad ranging cultural critic whose observations spanned many disciplines. He said that he stood in philosophy "exactly where stood in daily life." Tossup Questions # This man delivered a lecture describing a "crude but vital" popular mentality that "inhabits the skyscraper…" as opposed to one that inhabits "colonial mansions." He wrote a book that described essence, matter, truth, and spirit as four constituents of a group of foundations for experience. This writer of "The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy" argued that philosophy should rely on instinct instead of rational thought, and that it begins in medias res. This author wrote The Realms of Being and Scepticism and Animal Faith. For 10 points, name this Spanish-American philosopher who said that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." # This thinker claimed that while pleasure is universal, its causes are subjective in a work that disagrees with Kant's dispassionate analysis of the universals of art. This man outlined the influence of the title subject through "society", "religion", and "science" in a book that rejected true equality in favor of "natural aristocracy" and laments Catholicism as a "splendid error". In Realms of Being, this man expanded upon a book that asserts (*) doubt makes idealism irrelevant and advocates pragmatic living through the title "sense". In that work, this author of The Sense of Beauty argued "philosophy begins in medias res". For 10 points, name this Spanish-American philosopher who wrote Skepticism and Animal Faith and claimed that "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it". # This thinker rejected religion's moral and factual truth but praised its poetic capacity to produce piety and spirituality in the section "Reason in Religion." This thinker defined essence as embodiments of character through which humans perceive the world, contrasting it with matter, truth, and spirit. He argued that knowledge can be defined not by reasoned awareness but only by its application in action, meaning philosophy must begin in medias res. For 10 points, identify this Spanish-American philosopher of The Realms of Being and Skepticism and Animal Faith who declared in The Life of Reason that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." # This philosopher's early works were derided as the "perfection of rottenness" by William James, referring particularly to his book Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. He wrote a book on aesthetics which defined beauty as "pleasure regarded as a quality of the thing." He wrote a book on epistemology which argues against Cartesianism and claims that the human belief in matter is unavoidable; that book declares that "philosophy begins in medias res." This philosopher is known for his aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." For 10 points, name this Spanish-American philosopher who wrote The Sense of Beauty and Scepticism and Animal Faith. # While at Harvard, this thinker rejected Kantian thought by defining beauty as "pleasure objectified" that gives us our idea of God, rather than the other way around. This philosopher critiqued Cartesian foundationalism by arguing that humans are certain in their knowledge not out of reason, but because of a pre-rational belief in matter, concluding that philosophy must begin "in medias res." This author of The Sense of Beauty described matter, essence, truth, and spirit as the "realms of being" and wrote Skepticism and Animal Faith. For 10 points, identify this Spanish-American philosopher who stated, "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."